Touch sensitive displays have been incorporated into many consumer electronic devices, thus allowing for a wider array of tasks that are made available to a user. Thus users have come to now expect touch input functionality to be incorporated into all aspects of the user experience on such devices that incorporate a touch sensitive display. Whereas the function of simply providing a virtual keyboard on a touch sensitive display at certain predetermined times may have satisfied users at one time, users now have come to demand and expect such functionality at any time, and not just at predetermined instances. For instance, a user may want to invoke a note taking function while reading a paper on a touch sensitive display but was previously denied the ability to invoke such a writing function as only a reading function was made available. Or a user may be reviewing a student paper on a touch sensitive display and wish to edit the student paper but was denied the ability to make such editing notes because again only a read function was made available.
Typically, while reading written material on a display screen of a touch sensitive display device, if a user wanted to stop and open a text box to write down some notes, the user was required to manually switch from a reading mode to a text writing mode before being allowed to input textual notes. The process for manually switching from the reading mode to the text writing mode required the multiple steps of selecting a text input mode, selecting a region on the display screen to open a text input box, configuring the font settings of the text and also setting a language mode of the text to be displayed in the text input box. All of these steps were required just to allow a user to input text, which was rather cumbersome. So there is a need to provide a simple and efficient way to provide a user with the ability to invoke a writing function on a touch sensitive display at a user's command, and according to a user's desired configuration and settings, for a device that incorporates such a touch sensitive display.
The following disclosure of the present invention will describe advantageous embodiments for a new type of touch gesture that will invoke a text input capability on a touch sensitive display device.